What you see above is The Last Patrol. A combat correspondent captured this image of Imperial Advanced Recon Commandos (some truly salty galactic warfighters) conducting a security patrol outside their company FOB. In it you see them rushing to cover during an ambush by separatist forces. It’s what happens when you combine Star Wars and combat photography.
This is that correspondent: Sgt. Matthew Callahan, USMC.
Buy a patch or a shirt. We want your money. KnifeHandtheWorld.com.
Callahan really is a combat correspondent, but that wasn’t always the case. Previously he was a grunt with with 2/3 Marines serving in Afghanistan. Five years ago he snapped his leg jumping a canal and was evacced to FOB Dwyer, then sent home. While recovering from surgery at the Wounded Warrior Battalion in Hawaii he took up photography. As you can see, the gyrene is fucking good at it. So he switched to a new MOS in Public Affairs and was soon shooting images and video for the Marines around the world (Cobra Gold, Rim of the Pacific, Rock Beach, Pohakuloa Training Area, JWTC, etc.). He’s currently attending the Military Visual Journalism Program at Syracuse University.
Callahan posted this about 2 weeks ago, on the fifth anniversary of that injury.
“I distinctly remember the only time I lost my mind that day was when the doctors at FOB Dwyer told me I was going home. I cried into and out of surgery. I was a nervous boot barely a month into his first combat deployment and I felt like I was letting everybody down.
I had no idea at that time that this accident was the single greatest factor in what shaped the future not just of my career, but my entire life. Sometimes I think things happen for a reason. The windows opened, and through tender guidance from more people than I can name here, I came out of the experience armed with purpose and have been pursuing that purpose since.
I love that I’m a storyteller for the Marine Corps. I love that I’m good at it, and I love that I get paid to do it. To me, that’s half of existing.
Thanks you everyone who’s been there for me along this chaotic and glorious path. Here’s to five years.
Rah.”
We love this young man’s work and hope you do too. (If you don’t, that’s your business, but you need to quit licking windows.)
Warfighters and Galactic Warfighters
You can find Callahan Visual online here. Follow him on Instagram, @bridgingthe__gap. The Galactic Warfighters series is on Instagram as well: @galactic_warfighters.
Hat tip to Task & Purpose!
Seriously. Buy a shirt. KnifeHandtheWorld.com.
Mad Duo, Breach-Bang& CLEAR!
Comms Plan
Primary: Subscribe to our newsletter here, get the RSS feed and support us on Patreon right here.
Alternate: Join us on Facebook here or check us out on Instagram here.
Contingency: Exercise your inner perv with us on Tumblr here, follow us on Twitter here or connect on Google + here.
Emergency: Activate firefly, deploy green (or brown) star cluster, get your wank sock out of your ruck and stand by ’til we come get you.
Now that is one squared away Jarhead(said with the utmost of respect!!). Remember, sarge, when life gives you lemons freeze them hard as rock and throw them back. A lesson you clearly have mastered.